Functional Medicine
Caring for and maintaining the body’s health is an act of integrating treatment methods, not separating them. At von der Lieth Functional Health, we use a systems-oriented approach, addressing the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms.
The concept of “functional medicine” springs from the idea that medical care is an act of integration, not separation. Instead of simply addressing different symptoms across separate areas, functional medicine seeks to treat the issues that altogether affect the unified system of your body.
The principles that characterize Functional Medicine care are as follows:
- Functional Medicine shifts the traditional disease-centered focus to a more patient-centered approach, promoting health as a positive vitality, beyond just the absence of disease.
- Assessment and prevention are prioritized over wait-and-see treatment approaches.
- We spend time with our patients, listening to your history, your “story”. We look at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. We support the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
- Functional medicine integrates traditional Western medical practices with what is sometimes considered “alternative” or “integrative” medicine, creating a focus on prevention through nutrition, diet, and exercise; using the latest laboratory testing and other diagnostic techniques; and prescribing combinations of drugs and/or botanical medicines, supplements, therapeutic diets, detoxification programs, or stress-management techniques.
- Patients are not to feel that they have taken on a passive role in their own health. Instead, they are to be armed with information and encourage to take an active role in improving how they feel.
Utilizing the functional medicine approach can allow patients who have been searching for solutions to their problems for years to finally have hope. Unfortunately, the acute-care approach to medicine lacks the proper methodology and tools for preventing and treating complex, chronic disease. Instead of relying on being prescribed medications again and again for temporary relief, Dr. Erica von der Lieth and her team at von der Lieth Functional Health diagnose problems holistically in order to find long lasting cures.
Whether von der Lieth Functional Health is the first clinic you are visiting for treatment, or simply the latest one, we’ll make sure we do everything in our power to find an effective treatment and make sure it’s also the last clinic you’ll need to visit.
Take The First Step On Your Journey Back To Health
Maybe you have some questions you’d like to ask before you make a decision on becoming a patient. Our patient coordinator is standing by, happy to answer any questions you have to see whether or not von der Lieth Functional Health is right for you.